We could amend the bylaws to state that quorum is not required if an absolute majority has voted to pass the motion (an absolute majority being more than half of all active TUs). I think that makes sense because as it stands now, voting against the motion or simply abstaining is completely meaningless. If one were opposed to the motion, it would be more beneficial to simply not vote at all and to hope that others do the same so that quorum cannot be established.
This is basically what I've been spamming aur-general with. I did some research today and it appears that what you are talking about actually does happen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum When a vote is decided, politicians will sometimes abuse the quorum system to try to manipulate the result. --Kaiting. -- Kiwis and Limes: http://kaitocracy.blogspot.com/